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A Writer from Istanbul Who Served Three Tsars
writings of A. L. Shletser which state that Emin could not speak Turkish (Beshenkovski,
1974, p.189).
4. Archive Materials About Emin
Today, the documents in the Russian Foreign Policy Archive which belong to Emin himself
provide first-hand information in relation to Emin’s origin and his life before coming to St.
Petersburg. It is possible to see these documents in the studies of Beshenkovski and
Arzumanova. According to the information given in these studies, Emin provided information
about himself and requested to be employed within the government in his petition to the
Tsaritsa Yelisaveta written in Italian and also translated into Russian: “ My grandfather was
born in Poland and served the King as cavalry on the borders with the Turks. As a result of
an incident, he moved to Zvornik city of the Bosnian province. Since he was wanted, he
converted to Islam to save his life. Later, noticing his military capabilities, the governor
assigned him as an assistant to a general and helped him to buy a farm and marry the
daughter of the district attorney. From this marriage, my father was born and he was
educated at the court of abovementioned general governor. After his father’s death, my father
went to Istanbul and struggled to take over the Bosnian governorate. He also married the
slave woman who was a Christian and who gave birth to me. Having understood that he
could not become the Bosnian governor, my father had to be contented with Lepanto
Governorate given to him by the Ottoman Government. When leaving for Lepanto, he left me
and my mother in Istanbul and took me five years later. He taught me Latin and Polish for
ten years and later sent me to Italy to learn Italian. After I returned, I found my father who
was discharged from the governorate as a result of aspersions and exiled on Mettelina which
was one of the archipelagos. My father was able to escape there and went to Algeria after
three years. Since he knew the governor there, he was assigned as the governor of the
Constantine and Bigi provinces. When the war broke out between Algeria and Tunisia, he was
assigned as seraskier
*
or commander-in-chief of the troops fighting against Tunisia. During
this military expedition, my father not only crossed Tunisia, but also captured the son of the
defeated governor and sent his company and the booties to the Algeria Governor with me.
When I brought all these to the court, I was rewarded by being promoted as colonel in the
cavalry. Shortly after arriving in the capital Algiers, my father died because of a wound he
had during war. I returned to Istanbul with the permission of the abovementioned governor.
When I went to my mother with whom I spent some time, I told her about my intentions to go
to Europe and convert to Christianity as she had preached when I was little. To avoid any
kinds of suspicion, I left Istanbul and went to İzmir. There, I purchased goods in the value of
three thousand gold and loaded on a Swedish ship and departed towards Gibraltar. However,
unluckily pirates from Salatino captured the ship and took us to the city of Zummura in
Morocco. As a Muslim who resorted to the laws which were applied equally to everyone, I
requested my goods back from the governor of that city, but instead, they suspected that I was
the protector of the ship, not the owner of those goods, he tried to arrest and kill me. By luck,
I saw the horse tethered at the gates of the governor, I jumped on it and rode to the
Portuguese city Marsagam which was five kilometres from there. There, I was quickly
brought to the governor who wanted to enslave me as I was a Turk. I stated that I came to the
Christian territory to convert to Christianity. Later, the governor sent me to Lisbon with the
instruction that I should be taken to the court since the King of Portugal had a tradition to
receive foreigners individually and having heard my intentions to convert, he also gave
*
This word was used by Emin as Turkish (saraschere) in the petition which was originally written in Italian
(Beshenkovski, 1974:199).
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Zeynep Gunal
instructions to Cardinal Carvallo to teach all Christianity dogmas to me. Within a few months
that I spent with the Cardinal, I was not only taught the traditions of Christianity, but also
Portuguese and English which were spoken by the majority. After learning the differences
between Greek and Latin rules, I asked permission from the King to go to France since I
wanted to go to Russia and become an Orthodox. The King who promised to be my godfather
if I chose his religion, allowed me to go seeing that I was determined. Thus, I boarded a
British ship and set off to London. The day I arrived in London, I visited the ambassador who
represented Russia and I was baptised in his presence and I was sent to Russia with another
British ship. When I came here, I submitted various documents I had to the State Foreign
Affairs Commission. Given my commitment to the Orthodox rules and the deep desire to take
shelter in your empire, as your humble servant I hereby request that you have mercy on this
poor foreigner and I was assigned in your gracious Empire because of my knowledge of
Turkish, Italian, English, Latin, Portuguese and Polish languages and appointed to an
appropriate task to serve your highness with enough salary to live on without being in need.”
(Beshenkovski, 1974, p.201)
In the document he submitted in 1762 and requested that his salary was increased, Emin
described himself as follows: “As the State Foreign Affairs Commission has known for long, I
was born in Istanbul, as a Turkish citizen bound by the Turkish Law, I had left my homeland
and colonel rank and I came to the country of Her Majesty to convert to Orthodoxy and to be
loyal to Your Majesty forever. (…)” (Arzumanova, 1961, p. 182). According to these
documents, the fact that Emin spoke more than one languages, knew European literature very
well, had the courage to travel to foreign countries, especially Christian countries, was
engaged or would be engaged in trade if he had not be captured by pirates and his connections
with İzmir gave us the right to claim that he was a Levantine. Likewise, based on L. V.
Pumpyanski’s article Life of the Polish in Turkey (O jizni polyakov v Turtsii, 1935), in his
study Beshenkovski correlates the fact that Emin was educated in Italy and he spoke Italian
very well since he had compulsory courses from a high level Levantine until mid-18
th
century
with the fact that he was also a Levantine (Beshenkovski, 1974, p. 192).
According to the letters he wrote to his mother and relatives in both Istanbul and Izmir most
probably during his first days in Russia, Emin’s connections with the Ottoman Turkey were
tighter than expected. From his letter to his mother, it was understood that his mother’s name
was Rukiye Laden and she was living in Istanbul, she waited for good news from him and he
had a few sisters and brothers. Emin wrote to his mother that his health was good, he arrived
in Russia which was the place that they both wanted him to live and he was hoping to be
employed in the service of state here. In addition, the beginning of the letter contains a detail
which Russian researchers might not be able to notice. Emin started the letter by saying he
kisses the hands of his mother to whom he bowed with respect (Beshenkovski, 1974, p. 191).
Kissing the hands of an elder is specific to the Turkish culture and starting his letter in this
way indicated that he adopted Turkish traditions despite his foreign origin. One of the letters
sent to Turkey was written to his relative Emine Laden in Istanbul and the other two were sent
to İzmir to Hasan and Mehmet Melement as signed by Muhammed Ali of Algeria
(Beshenkovski, 1974).
As Russian Ambassador Obreskov in Turkey reported to his country, Emin’s letter was not
delivered to his mother as she had died a few months ago. Since the Russian authorities
thought that the story he told during job application was too imaginary, Count Vorontsov who
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